Moves to improve Korean cross-border relations

In an apparent attempt to improve cross-border relations, North Korea has put a proposal to South Korea urging both sides to stop taking provocative military actions and vilifying each other.

The Korean Central News Agency says Pyongyang's powerful National Defence Commission is also calling on Seoul to abandon any plans to take part in joint military exercises with the United States this year.

"We especially propose stopping all acts provoking the other side on the ground, in the sea and in the air, including five islands in the West Sea," the agency quotes the commission as saying, adding that North Korea will "show its practical action first for the realisation of this proposal."

North Korea says it will be possible to resume reunions of families separated during the 1950-1953 Korean War and settle a range of other problems between the two countries if its proposals are put into practice from January 30th.

Earlier this month, South Korea's President, Park Geun Hye, proposed that the two Koreas restart reunions, which were last held in late 2010, around the Lunar New Year.

North Korea also said its nuclear development is aimed at deterring threats from the United States and "would never be a means of blackmailing their fellow countrymen and doing harm to them."

But Seoul has already rejected Pyongyang's request to call off military exercises with the Americans which usually take place between late February and April.

Defence Ministry spokesman, Kim Min Seok, says the exercises are "annual and defensive in nature, and before criticising them, North Korea should take sincere actions toward its denuclearisation."

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